Quercetin: A natural disease-fighting powerhouse antioxidant

Quercetin is a bioflavonoid and potent antioxidant found in plants, where it functions to help them survive harsh weather conditions, while warding off infections and blight. Quercetin’s strong antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties make it a very promising treatment for combatting infections in humans as well.

Whereas the flu is self-limiting, the FDA’s capacity for bad decisions is not…

The recent decision by the FDA to approve the use of the antiviral drug Tamiflu for treating influenza in infants as young as two weeks old, belies an underlying trajectory within our regulatory agencies towards sheer insanity.

Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, has already drawn international concern over its link with suicide deaths in children given the drug after its approval in 1999. In fact, in 2004, the Japanese pharmaceutical company Chugai added “abnormal behavior” as a possible side effect inside Tamiflu’s package. The FDA also acknowledged in its April, 2012 “Pediatric Postmarket Adverse Event Review” of Tamiflu that “abnormal behavior, delirium, including symptoms such as hallucinations, agitation, anxiety, altered level of consciousness, confusion, nightmares, delusions” are possible side effects.[i]

Recent animal research on Tamiflu has found that the infant brain absorbs the drug more readily than the adult brain,[ii][iii]lending a possible explanation for why neuropsychiatric side effects have been observed disproportionately in younger patients.

“The upshot of all this is that governments around the world are flushing billions of dollars down the drain stockpiling a drug that doesn’t work — a drug promoted via propaganda and scientific fraud.”

Tamiflu: Roche studies based on scientific fraud

(NaturalNews) When it comes to selling chemicals that claim to treat H1N1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry’s options are limited to two: Vaccines and anti-virals. The most popular anti-viral, by far, is Tamiflu, a drug that’s actually derived from a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called star anise.

But Tamiflu is no herb. It’s a potentially fatal concentration of isolated chemical components that have essentially been bio-pirated from Chinese medicine. And when you isolate and concentrate specific chemicals in these herbs, you lose the value (and safety) of full-spectrum herbal medicine.

That didn’t stop Tamiflu’s maker, Roche, from trying to find a multi-billion-dollar market for its drug. In order to tap into that market, however, Roche needed to drum up some evidence that Tamiflu was both safe and effective.

Roche engages in science fraud

Roche claims there are ten studies providing Tamiflu is both safe and effective. According to the company, Tamiflu has all sorts of benefits, including a 61% reduction in hospital admissions by people who catch the flu and then get put on Tamiflu.

The problem with these claims is that they aren’t true. They were simply invented by Roche.

A groundbreaking article recently published in the British Medical Journal accuses Roche of misleading governments and physicians over the benefits of Tamiflu. Out of the ten studies cited by Roche, it turns out, only two were ever published in science journals. And where is the original data from those two studies? Lost.

The data has disappeared. Files were discarded. The researcher of one study says he never even saw the data. Roche took care of all that, he explains.

So the Cochrane Collaboration, tasked with reviewing the data behind Tamiflu, decided to investigate. After repeated requests to Roche for the original study data, they remained stonewalled. The only complete data set they received was from an unpublished study of 1,447 adults which showed that Tamiflu was no better than placebo. Data from the studies that claimed Tamiflu was effective was apparently lost forever.

As The Atlantic reports, that’s when former employees of Adis International (essentially a Big Pharma P.R. company) shocked the medical world by announcing they had been hired to ghost-write the studies for Roche.

It gets even better: These researchers were told what to write by Roche!

As one of these ghostwriters told the British Medical Journal:

“The Tamiflu accounts had a list of key messages that you had to get in. It was run by the [Roche] marketing department and you were answerable to them. In the introduction …I had to say what a big problem influenza is. I’d also have to come to the conclusion that Tamiflu was the answer.”

Deadly flu continues to spread across Ukraine, criminal World Health Organization lies to the public, MSM maintains radio silence.

There are many aspects to this story. It is impossible to know where to begin — let alone cover all the pertinent facts in just one article. Those who have followed my Zerohedge columns in the past may be aware the subject of pandemic influenza has been a regular feature, precisely because there have been multiple signs indicating a global pandemic would be exploited (and perhaps even initiated) by governments and international banks for political purposes.

The signs have been building, including as I previously reported, forced quarantine orders inadvertently published by the CDC. What do these people know which the public does not?

SUMMARY

Over the past two weeks, what appears to be a particularly virulent form of the flu has been spreading in Ukraine and adjacent Eastern European countries. This new flu is, in my opinion, a lethal new strain which has mutated (or was released). I speak with a background in virology. This new mutated flu virus appears to have a remarkable affinity for the lungs and is causing deaths to a much higher extent than the previous swine flu. Something in the virus has changed. I have covered this incredibly important story for two weeks now in my weekly column This Week In Mayhem, which is generally published on Monday mornings.

Regardless, there has been almost zero (NOTHING. NADA. SILENCE.) mention of the Ukraine epidemic in the mainstream media, a fact which I find both astonishing and profoundly disturbing. There is apparently collusion at the highest levels of government and media to suppress this information. There are now 1.3 million infected in Ukraine, and over 75,000 hospitalized — IN FOURTEEN DAYS. This is very serious! Based on previous clinical data we can expect over 8,000 to be dead or soon to be dead. Forward projection of the epidemic is difficult because the clinical attack rate is unknown — but myself and my associates remain concerned it may be quite high. Deaths globally may be in the millions. Let’s hope this is not the case.

An example of viral pneumonia. Yeah, fail.
The new flu strain, which I contend is spreading in Ukraine and Belarus, is characterized by a lightning form of viral pneumonia — very similar to what happened in 1918. The new flu virus appears to have profound tissue affinity for sialic acid receptors deep in the lungs, replicating in the alveoli. To put it mildly, the lungs fill with blood. Quotes from Ukrainian officials included quotes such as “total destruction of the lungs.” Ukrainian Doctor Viktor Bachinsky has stated, “The virus causing the deaths is extremely aggressive — it doesn’t first infect the throat (as is common in flu), but strikes the lungs directly.” In Ukraine’s western Chernovetsky region, an epicenter of the outbreak, doctors have said lab tests showed at least some of the fatalties appeared to be caused by a flu dissimilar to both common flu and swine flu. In other words, a mutant flu. This claim of a ‘mutant flu’ has been echoed by Ukrainian public health officials such as Dr. Vasyl Lazoryshynetz. Unfortunately, as noted in the above Russia Today video, pharmacies across the country are sold out of antivirals. To the hard of thinking — yes, this is currently happening in Ukraine.

I have multiple sources confirming spot outbreaks of viral pneumonia in Eastern Europe, including official and non-official entities. In terms of the current situation, there appear to be a high number of pneumonia patients in Ukrainian and Belerusian hospitals. This epidemic has not shut down Ukrainian society yet, but it has caused many people to become concerned, and to buy up essential medicines. Reports from doctors in Belarus indicate they do not expect this deadly new flu epidemic to peak until Christmas or later. This is why it is important to analyze the situation and viral genetics now, and if necessary, contain the spread of the virus while it is still possible — something the criminals at WHO do not appear interested in doing. These idiots at WHO have yet to release the viral gene sequences (even though they have had them for two weeks), and are now outright lying in their press releases, which I detail later. In terms of how dangerous this new flu strain could potentially be, I conducted a rough analysis of the Ukrainian government statistics, yielding a projected case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.61% — over six times as lethal as seasonal flu.

The Ukrainian government has been releasing daily data updates on the numbers of “acute respiratory infections” , the number of related hospitalizations , and the number of deaths since Oct 28, 2009. These reported numbers have increased substantially over the past two weeks, from near zero before Halloween to over a million as of today. It is important to remember that these statistics are not laboratory confirmed H1N1 cases (due to the state of the Ukrainian medical system), but we can cautiously assume at this point the vast majority of ARI (acute respiratory infection) in Ukraine with rapid progression to viral pneumonia are caused by influenza A virus. This is because a large subset of these samples are coming up positive of Influenza A, and a smaller subset tested by rt-rtPCR are coming up positive for influenza A/H1N1, or what is more commonly known as ‘swine flu’. This suggests we are dealing with a viral epidemic of influenza.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

This is not ‘swine flu’ as previously known. Statistically, the only way for this to be ‘swine flu’ is if it has mutated (or if the data is wrong). . . We will get to that in a minute.

President Barack Obama walks down the stairs of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Friday, Oct. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency. The White House on Saturday said Obama signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements. Officials described the move as similar to a declaration ahead of a hurricane making landfall.

* CDC said swine flu widespread in 46 of 50 states (Adds details on new antiviral drug)
WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama has declared 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency, the White House said on Saturday.

The declaration will make it easier for U.S. medical facilities to handle a surge in flu patients by allowing the waiver of some requirements of Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs as needed, the White House said in a statement.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that swine flu has become widespread in 46 of the 50 U.S. states, a level comparable to the peak of ordinary flu seasons but far earlier and with more waves of infection expected.

Obama signed the statement on Friday night.

The White House statement said the declaration was intended to prepare the country in case of “a rapid increase in illness that may overburden health care resources.” It was similar to disaster declarations issued before hurricanes hit coastal areas.

– Swine flu: TV presenter’s daughter ‘almost died’ after taking Tamiflu (Guardian):GMTV star Andrew Castle confronts health secretary, Andy Burnham, over policy of giving drug to children
Castle said his older daughter, Georgina, had a “respiratory collapse” and “suffered very heavily” after being “just handed” the drug without a proper diagnosis.
The presenter said: “I can tell you that my child – who was not diagnosed at all – she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.”

Tamiflu has just one anti-viral incredient in it and that is Star Anise. A herb that is mainly used by TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Yet TCM would never just prescribe just one herb to do the job. TCM looks at the entire bodily condition and strengthens the entire body with several herbs and acupuncture or even Qi Gong exercises.

TCM had a cure rate for diseases in general of over 95% (before China was invaded with MSG, junk food and GMOs).

Western medicine can just dream of that. Western medicine has a very high ‘supress the symptoms rate’, which usually aggravates the health condition in the long run (as intended), but then thats it.

Big Pharma and western medicine just ‘borrow’ ancient knowledge, patent it and sell it to you as ‘the cure’ and calls herbal medicine ineffective and unscientific.

Duh!

Study raises questions about effectiveness of Tamiflu for young children, but public health agency stands by broad use of treatment

Toronto — Canadian health authorities will not change their practice of prescribing the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to treat cases of pandemic H1N1 flu in children, despite a new study that raises questions about the drug’s effectiveness.

Researchers at the University of Oxford cautioned about the broad use of anti-viral drugs to treat children 12 years of age and younger suffering from seasonal flu. They found anti-viral drugs have little or no effect on asthma flare-ups, ear infections or bacterial infections in children. Tamiflu was also linked to increased vomiting.

The authors questioned whether children would face the same risks when being treated with anti-virals for the pandemic H1N1 flu virus.

But the Public Health Agency of Canada assured parents Monday that Tamiflu has a strong safety profile, and has recommended doctors prescribe it for infection prevention and to treat cases of H1N1 in infants under one year.

“We know that Tamiflu thus far is effective in treating the vast majority of people who have H1N1, making their symptoms less severe and the illness lasting fewer days,” the agency said in an e-mail. “We now have some evidence that there seems to be less risk in using Tamiflu in young children.”

The pandemic virus has shown resistance to Tamiflu, one of two anti-virals that can keep it in check if taken within days of the first symptoms. However, there have been people who have fallen ill despite taking the drug.

The swine flu vaccine being offered to children has not been tested on infants

The swine flu vaccine which will be offered to 12 million children in the UK may not have been tested on infants by the time the first batches arrive.

Pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the jabs do not have any paediatric safety data for the drugs, which could be distributed to children in the autumn.

The first consignment of the vaccine is due to arrive at the end of this month but drugs firms have only just begun trials on adults.

Trials on children may not start for a few weeks.

Children are thought to be most at risk of developing a serious form of the H1N1 virus and also help to spread swine flu. It is expected they will be among the first to be vaccinated, along with health professionals, pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions.

Children report a range of side-effects, but the official advice is that Tamiflu is safe

More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests.

An estimated 150,000 people with flu symptoms were prescribed the drug through a new hotline and website last week, according to figures revealed yesterday.

Studies of children attending three schools in London and one in the South West showed that 51-53 per cent had one or more side-effects from the medication, which is offered to everyone in England with swine flu symptoms.

The research by the Health Protection Agency emerged as Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that swine flu infections “may have reached a plateau”.

Releasing the latest figures, Sir Liam said that an estimated 110,000 new cases of the H1N1 virus were diagnosed by doctors in the week to Sunday. That did not include those using the new National Pandemic Flu Service for England to obtain antiviral drugs without seeing their GP.